Thursday, June 25, 2009

Summery Books

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you? (I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)
This is harder than it seems. There are several books that make me think of hot weather, such as Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry or the whole Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell, but those are books set in hot climates, not books related to summer in particular. There are also a few books that remind me of summer because I happened to read them in the summer, like Jim Harrison's pre-The Road Home novels, which I tore through in the summer of 1994. But I guess if I had to pick one novel that captures the idea of summer, I would go with Huckleberry Finn. The adventures, the river, the kid out of school -- it all feels like summer. In fact, this one is going back on my TBR shelf to re-read this summer.

Author of the Day: Nick Hornby



Nick Hornby is a favorite author of mine because I enjoyed High Fidelity so much.


I did not realize he had so many non-fiction books in addition to his novels. Fever Pitch is a memoir about being an avid football fan. Songbook is a collection of essays inspired by certain pop songs. The last three on the list intrigue me the most because they are collections of Hornby's book reviews from The Believer magazine.

Those I have read are in red; those on my TBR shelf are in blue.

Novels
(1995) High Fidelity (reviewed here)
(1998) About a Boy
(2001) How to Be Good
(2005) A Long Way Down
(2007) Slam
(2009) Juliet, Naked (reviewed here)

Non-Fiction
(1992) Fever Pitch
(2003) Songbook (called 31 Songs in England)
(2004) The Polysyllabic Spree (reviewed here)
(2006) Housekeeping vs. the Dirt
(2008) Shakespeare Wrote for Money

NOTE
Last updated on March 19, 2012.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...